


Panic & Partners

by ohmywhy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Married Couple, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmywhy/pseuds/ohmywhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darren and Chris can't find their daughter after school. A brief look into them as parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panic & Partners

They’ve been waiting in the car for twenty minutes now, and they can’t find her.

Darren’s right hand sits mindlessly on the steering wheel, his left hand thrumming gently on the car door, when Chris looks at him and asks, “What if she was kidnapped?”

The idea hadn’t even occurred to Darren. “Chris…” Darren begins, ready to retort, but when he turns to look at his husband, he sees an evident panic rising. Fear. Worry. Horror. Darren’s taken aback, and he scrunches his eyebrows in concern.

“Baby,” he says, and his hand reaches up to caress Chris’s face softly. “She’s fine. She’s just late.”

“I’m serious! She _always_ waits for us exactly at 4 pm, like clockwork, at the main entrance door. She is _twenty_ minutes late. I have called her three times, and she has not answered once. She won’t answer her text messages either. I’m serious, Darren. I’m really worried.” Chris shakes a little, so Darren makes a point to calm his husband’s qualms. If he’s honest with himself, he too can feel Chris’s fear rising in him.

Because their daughter isn’t with him, and she’s nowhere to be found.

“I’m going to check inside to see if she’s waiting right by the main entrance.” Chris exits the car, and Darren watches him press the front doorbell, to no avail. He peeks through the doors into the school, scanning the hallways, and then looks through the window, and Darren assumes he finds the main office empty, because he returns quickly to the car.

 _Oh god,_ Darren thinks, _what if she really was kidnapped? What if they took her phone? What if she was waiting for us and somebody grabbed her?_

His face remains calm for Chris’s sake.

“She’s not there,” Chris states, voice shaky. “She’s always there waiting for us. Always. Where do you think she is?”

“I don’t know.” Although Darren feels fear crawling up his throat, he leans across and kisses Chris’s cheek swiftly. “I’ll go find her.”

He dismounts the car and zips his coat up a little higher, pulls his hat down a little further. He walks around the school towards a side entrance. When he knocks on the door, a teacher opens.

“Can I help you?” she asks, and behind her, he sees a cafeteria full of kids. Relief sweeps over him.

“I’m looking for my daughter, Melanie Colfer-Criss. She’s in the after school chorus program. Is she here?”

“Well, I can let you in to look around, but all the chorus kids were already released. I don’t believe she’s here.”

Panic. He looks back at the car and sees Chris hunched over his phone, probably sending Mel a barrage of texts.

Darren thanks the teacher quickly, masking his sudden worry, and then runs into the school. He wanders every hallway, checks the chorus room, even the indoor gym, but he. can’t. find. her. anywhere. He doesn’t text Chris, as he knows from experience that Chris must be silently panicking in the car, always the first to let fear take control when it comes to their daughter. (And Darren doesn’t blame him.) But ten minutes later, Chris texts him.

_[4:28 pm] She’s here._

And an angry face emoji.

Darren exhales loudly. He makes it back to the car to find Chris with his arms crossed in the passenger seat and Melanie looking innocent in the back.

“I was just talking to my friends, Papa!” Melanie insists when Darren opens the door to return to the driver seat.

Chris is stoic, quiet. He shrugs his shoulders and looks out the window. Darren knows he’s relieved, but must be simultaneously furious as Melanie is officially _thirty minutes late_ and made them both worry out of their minds. With no courtesy call or text. Chris isn’t precisely mad at their daughter, Darren knows, but the situation. The panic and frustration that took over him, sitting, waiting in the car, melds into negative emotions.

“We were worried about you,” Darren says sternly. He puts the car in drive and briefly looks at his 12-year-old daughter through the rearview mirror.

“I know, but Dad, I was talking to my friends, and I got distracted, I’m sorry!”

“Why didn’t you check the time?” Chris asks.

“I just didn’t!” She defends herself. “I forgot!”

“Yes,” Darren says, “But Mel, you didn’t bother to call or text either of us, and you _knew_ we were out here waiting for you. Not five or ten minutes. We waited for _thirty_ minutes. You don’t think after thirty minutes, we would start to panic, thinking _maybe Mel got kidnapped and she’s actually missing_?”

“I didn’t look at my phone, Dad!”

“That’s the problem. When you know that your Papa and I are waiting for you, you make a point to check the time and either be here when we’re out front or at least tell us you’re going to be a little late. You didn’t think about how either of us would react.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she says exasperatedly. Darren risks a glance at Chris, whose elbow is perched on the door, head in his hand. With his right hand, he reaches for Chris’s empty one, lacing their fingers together and placing their joint hands on Chris’s armrest. Chris looks at Darren and smiles faintly, and Darren reads him effortlessly.

“How would you have felt,” Chris says, “if I didn’t answer _my_ phone?” Darren listens carefully. He would have never thought of turning the situation on her like that.

“What?” Melanie asks, confused.

“If I told you I would come pick you up at 3 pm on the dot,” Chris continues, “and you were waiting for me for thirty minutes, how would you feel if I didn’t answer my phone?”

“I don’t know…”

“Exactly,” Chris turns in his seat to face their daughter. “You don’t know, because you expect me to always pick up your phone call when I need you, and I always do. So I expect you to pick up mine when you know that I am waiting for you. It is your responsibility. You may feel as though your dad and I are blowing this out of proportion because _you_ knew you were okay, but we didn’t. We love you, so it’s our duty to make sure you’re okay. We have to worry about you.”

“Papa,” Melanie’s voice breaks. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Chris responds, turning back around. “But don’t do it again.”

Darren squeezes Chris’s hand gently and smiles softly when Chris squeezes in return. In that moment, he silently admires Chris and particularly, their parental teamwork. They’ll still have to have a conversation with Melanie, and in the future, she’ll probably cause many more panics, but he knows and trusts that he has the best partner for the job.


End file.
